2018 Documentary Oscar-Nominated Shorts

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Traffic Stop (dir. Kate Davis, US, 31min) In June 2015, a 26-year-old African-American elementary school teacher named Breaion King was pulled over by a white police officer for a routine traffic stop. The incident escalated into a violent arrest, followed by a conversation about race in America between King and another white officer while he drove her to the station. Edith+Eddie (dir. Laura Checkoway, US, 29min) Edith and Eddie, at ages 96 and 95, became America's oldest interracial newlyweds. Their love story is disrupted by a family feud that threatens to tear the couple apart. Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (dir. Frank Stiefel, US, 40min) Artist Mindy Alper has spent almost all of her 56 years combating severe depression and anxiety, using medication, electroconvulsive therapy and psychiatry to help her. Art has always been her most effective outlet, with drawing and sculpture offering her the tools to give voice to her fears and mental battles. Intermission Heroin(e) (dir. Elaine McMillion Sheldon, US, 39min) Once a bustling industrial town, Huntington, WV has become the epicenter of America's modern opioid epidemic, with an overdose rate 10 times the national average. This flood of heroin now threatens this Appalachian city with a cycle of generational addiction, lawlessness and poverty. But within this distressed landscape, we see a different side of the fight against drugs one of hope, as three women working to change the town's narrative one person at a time. Knife Skills (dir. Thomas Lennon, US, 40min) Over 650,000 people are released from prison every year. Knife Skills follows the launch of Edwins, an haute cuisine French restaurant in Cleveland staffed by men and women recently released from behind bars to tell the story of re-entry, second chances and the healing power of fine food. (Total running time: 102 minutes and 82 minutes, with one 15-minute intermission)